Riverland, p.10
Riverland, page 10
We had three more days to work on posters. I’d never let a project go so long. I’d planned to figure it out over the weekend, but then everything had happened.
Mr. Divner went one way, toward the principal’s office, and I headed for lunch, finally. There were a few seventh graders still going through the line with empty trays, but no one I knew well. Near the window, looking out at the soccer fields, I spotted my old friend Aja sitting right next to Pendra.
Aja and I had drifted apart after she moved, but I knew Pendra liked her.
I took a deep breath and went over. Put the book carefully on Pendra’s tray. “I’m sorry I didn’t get it back to you sooner,” I said. “We had to go out of town.”
Let that be enough.
Pendra put her hand on the book and nodded. “Thanks.” She half smiled, but then she slid over to give me half her seat too. I relaxed into it, grateful I’d been at least half forgiven. But I wasn’t off the hook. Pendra kept talking to Aja. “Eleanor’s mom was so mad Friday night.” She took a careful bite of her ravioli and chewed so that I’d have a long time in which to respond.
I’d barely gotten my own sandwich—peanut butter, again—unwrapped, and now I blushed so hard I could barely see straight.
Aja leaned in. “Eleanor’s dad and my dad fought a lot, but her mom was always really nice. What did you do wrong, Pendra?”
“I’m sitting right here, you guys,” I said, calmly even though I wanted to sink into the floor. “She just had a long day.”
I looked at Aja pleadingly. She’d lived three houses up the hill from us. She didn’t say anything now, but I guessed she knew my parents fought. I’d heard her parents fighting too, sometimes. But not as much.
And Pendra. Why was she doing this? More payback for losing the book? I felt my cheeks heating up with embarrassment. If she was a real friend, she’d . . .
Temper, Eleanor. I tried to count to ten.
Pendra blushed. “I didn’t do anything. I just wanted to hang out over there. We’re at my house all the time.”
“She talks about your house like it’s magic,” Aja said to me.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not.”
“The witch ball might be,” Pendra pressed. “And Mike said—”
“The old fishing float? It really wasn’t . . . Isn’t.” Wasn’t. I stumbled over the word. I touched my fingers to the glass in my pocket. Not quite solid. I couldn’t feel any magic in it.
Maybe the witch ball would be fixed when we got home. Sometimes house magic was just slow.
“It’s just for fish and superstition.” I shrugged, hoping she’d let it drop.
“Okayyy,” Pendra said. “Fine.”
Then Aja turned the conversation to science posters, and specifically to the science of diapers, on account of her new twin sisters. She looked at us expectantly, but I hesitated. After the note this morning, would Pendra still want to work together? Would I be able to without breaking any rules?
Pendra twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “I’m stumped. I was going to do the chemistry of cupcakes. It would have been delicious.”
Pendra had the best ideas. But I blinked. She’d said, “was going to.”
“But Mr. Divner said someone did that last year. So I was trying”—she glanced at me—“to get someone to team up with. I’m still trying.”
I thought hard. Did I want to take the risk? My parents might not like it if Pendra and I had to work together, especially after school now that they’d made a new rule. Suddenly, I was kind of okay with that. “I was thinking of doing something on glass.”
Pendra raised her eyebrows. “Like the witch ball?”
“Kind of. More scientific. Still want to work together?”
She grinned and nodded.
I smiled too, a real smile, the kind that made me feel lighter all the way to the top of my head. “I’m glad.”
Too soon, the bell rang and Pendra piled up The Hobbit on top of one of her other books and checked her tray for her retainer. “I’ll see you on the bus.”
After a boring soccer drill in gym where I mostly sat on the bench, the final bell chimed. The bus was idling by the time I got changed and climbed aboard. Pendra waved from her seat. She’d saved me a space. I sank down happily.
Two more eighth graders and one of the seventh-grade boys got on board. The driver growled at both of them. “Oh.” Pendra put a hand to her mouth. “My science book’s in my locker and Mom’s already at another school.” She jumped up and went to beg the driver, “Can you wait?”
He looked at her for a long minute, then nodded silently and she sprinted off the bus, through the school doors and out of sight. When she was gone, the driver tapped his foot on the brake, looked at his watch, and then slowly closed the door and started to shift into drive.
“You have to wait! You said you would.” I was on my feet and standing in front of him before I knew what I was doing.
I’d told the Heron I’d wait too. And I hadn’t.
“We’re going to be late to the elementary,” the driver said. But just then, Pendra came sprinting back, hair flying, and banged on the door. He opened it, but not all the way, and she had to squeeze by. “You kids think you’re so special.”
Everyone on the bus looked at Pendra and me. I wished I could sink through the bus floor and maybe the pavement beneath. “Thanks,” I muttered, all the time feeling the opposite of special. My face was on fire.
But when I sat down next to Pendra, she beamed at me. “You didn’t have to do that.”
I did. I knew what it meant to be left. “You would have done it for me.”
“Thanks,” she said, leaning against me and then straightening. A shoulder bump. Friends again. “How did they find a driver who is that mean?” she whispered. “Aja has a nice driver now. Why don’t we?”
I shrugged. The driver was sometimes nice to me when I rode with just Mike, and sometimes mean, but he was often awful to Pendra and I hated it. Complaining she talked too much, ate on the bus, everything everyone else did.
“Did Mike have the book?” Pendra asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. I nodded before I realized I’d added another reason for Pendra not to like Mike. Great.
“How did you know?”
“My brothers are a pain, but Mike seems to break and lose things all the time. Remember the binoculars? Have you told Mr. Divner yet?”
“The binoculars. Mike didn’t—” I stopped. I’d told Pendra that Mike had broken them, and Mike had gone along with it. It was either that or tell her they’d disappeared, and how. Pendra had a good memory. “I’m sorry about my mom.” And my dad.
Pendra shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. You should see when my brothers get in trouble.” She grinned wickedly. “That’s bad. Mom says you should come over anytime. And to not forget about the sleepover.”
We’d been planning that for a month. Both our birthdays, cupcakes, movies. I didn’t tell her she couldn’t come over to my house. I didn’t ever want to have to tell her that. But now I didn’t want to leave Mike alone the night of the sleepover either.
I pretended like I’d be able to go. I wanted to go.
“It’s okay if Aja comes too?” Pendra asked. “You guys were friends before she moved, right?”
I nodded, defeated. We were, until our parents fought and some other things happened. “Sure.”
Pendra smiled and unwrapped a brownie and broke it in half. Chocolate and caramel. The rich smell hit me like a wave. She gestured half toward me, but I hesitated. She could turn our friendship on and off. She’d left me a mean note over a book. I wanted to be her friend, but I was feeling cautious still. “I’m all right.” My stomach growled, but if I said it, it was true.
When we stopped at the elementary school, a teacher tapped her wrist above her watch and the bus driver glowered at Pendra and me. But Mike and Kalliope climbed up the stairs and sat down in the front row. Mike looked worn out, like her backpack was very heavy.
I thought again about the stories we told to stay out of trouble. The weight of them. What the Heron had said about telling untruths being bad for the river.
Pendra still thought Mike broke and lost things, because of me.
“Mike didn’t break the binoculars,” I said as the bus shifted noisily into gear. “I lost them.”
Pendra’s mouth made an O. “I hate it when my brothers blame stuff on me that I didn’t do.”
I nodded. If she was going to frost me again, fine. Better now than later. “Mike didn’t want me to get in trouble, so she went along with it. She goes along with a lot of things. Which is why she gets pushed around.”
Mike watched me out of the side of her eye over the seat. Listening hard. Her hair was a mess of curls and tangles and a couple leaves. I was sure we could both hear echoes of our father yelling, “Mary, you should have fought like a boy. You want to defend yourself, I’ll show you how.”
I frowned at the memory. I’d stepped in the middle of that one too. And the binoculars had gotten broken.
Pendra looked at me strangely. I’d been quiet awhile. “I just don’t want you thinking she’s annoying,” I said. “She’s not.”
Pendra held the brownie out again, and I took it.
“Delicious.”
“Made them myself.” She split a piece off for Mike too. And Kalliope.
We ate in silence most of the way home and when we got off the bus, Pendra didn’t ask to sit on our dock. I was relieved.
On the neighboring farmland my parents were trying to buy, a dark horse the color of smoke grazed the field. The bay below us was smooth and our house looked untroubled. But Mike and I lingered at the top of the hill.
“You can both come over. We’ll work on our poster for the real magic of glass,” Pendra said. “And if you think she’d be okay, Mike could come for a bit to the sleepover, if you wanted. We’re neighbors, it’s not too weird.” She laughed softly. “Besides, younger siblings have to stick up for each other.”
That would mean I could go. I couldn’t help but grin. “We’d like that. I would, at least.” Mike nodded agreement.
Down in the cul-de-sac, tires squeaked on asphalt. Momma’s sedan pulled into our driveway and two doors slammed in quick succession. No, we couldn’t go to Pendra’s right now. We needed to hustle home instead. “Maybe tomorrow.”
When I looked up, the dark horse had disappeared from the farm, unless it had only been shadows to begin with. I shuddered.
Pendra didn’t notice. She gave me a hug and spun on her toes. “See you tomorrow!”
The distance between relief and worry was so short. I was caught between the two.
I followed Mike down the hill, counting our steps.
When we got in the door, the tea-tinted stain below the landing had expanded. It looked like a tadpole now, with a fat head and a long, trailing tail.
I tried not to look at it. Mike tried not to look at it.
We looked so hard not at it that Momma gave us funny glances as we set the table. But she didn’t look up either.
Dinner was silence and chewing.
Poppa hunched over his plate in a glower. The bank meeting hadn’t gone well, was my best guess.
As I pushed my food around the plate, Momma confirmed it. “We can put the house up as collateral if you think it’s the best idea.” Her voice was soft.
The moment she said the words, the entire room relaxed. I felt the tension go, just like a weather change. Poppa smiled. “You think we could?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “I would have to talk with my mother. She’s still on the paperwork.”
Poppa’s face clouded over.
“But I think I could get her to understand,” Momma finally said.
The moment we got up from the table to take the dishes in, I forgot what we’d eaten. The plates said it had been spaghetti with a red sauce.
“My stomach hurts,” Mike said.
“Sit down. You’ll feel better,” I said. Mike sat on the kiddie stool beside the sink and stared at another stain on the kitchen ceiling.
The leaks were spreading.
Forks and knives jangling against the plates, I carried the rest of the dishes from the dining room into the kitchen. I began to put them in the dishwasher without asking permission or rinsing them. We usually hand-washed everything, but we were both tired. Mike stared at me but then helped. We had to figure out how to run the dishwasher, but it was pretty straightforward. Powder in the little box, shut the door. I don’t know why we never used it, but I was ready for that to change.
I wanted a lot of things to change. “We need to stop the leaks before they get too big. To help keep the nightmares and Anassa on their own side.”
Mike nodded. “If the river comes back.”
“I’m pretty sure it will.” It was already here. Seeping through. I closed the dishwasher and turned it on. “We’ll try after they go to sleep.”
I had poster sketches to work on before then. The magic of glass.
Above us in the kitchen, a second small stain slowly deepened in color until it matched that of driftwood.
I wiped down the countertop and tried very hard not to notice.
“It will be all right,” Mike said. As if saying made it so.
The sun was still setting behind the trees when Momma tucked Mike in. I heard her telling Mike a story but couldn’t make out the words.
She looked in on me. She didn’t say anything at first, but she lingered in the doorway. I kept drawing.
“Your grandmother and I didn’t talk a lot after your grandfather died. That was probably my fault,” Momma admitted. “She means well. But she doesn’t get on with Poppa. She bosses him around. Tries to tell him what to do. Especially with money.”
“It’s her house,” I whispered. “And ours too.” I surprised myself. That’s not what I’d been thinking of saying. But my voice didn’t shake.
“I know, and it will still be. He promised we’re not going to use it as collateral unless we need to. We think our investment in the development will be enough. We just need to get approved. Though some of the rental properties are starting to leak and now we have to fix those. It’s worrying your father especially.”
The leaks were my fault. I knew it. I knew what banks did when you couldn’t pay a loan on time. Aja had moved because of that. If I didn’t fix the leaks, could we lose our house too?
I could stop it. I knew I could.
Momma put her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry so much, Eleanor. Especially not about what you can’t control.”
“Okay.”
I went back to working on my poster. Drawing different kinds of glass, different glass molecular states, liquid and solid. The lines got thicker and thicker.
My entire life was mostly made up of things I couldn’t control. How could I not worry?
Finally, Momma sighed and left my room.
When I was alone, I glanced at the carpet beside my bed, where I very deliberately hadn’t been looking for at least twenty minutes. Momma hadn’t seen what I saw now: a pool of moonlit water emerging from beneath the bed skirt. Sending out tendrils of water into the room.
“Are they asleep?”
“I think so.”
“What are you doing?”
“Telling a story with pictures.”
“What about?”
“Glass.”
“Like the witch ball?”
“Kind of. Here, let me show you.”
“There are a lot of numbers and stuff.”
“Sure, but it’s still a story. Look: Once upon a time, people thought glass was a liquid. They thought that windows were thicker on the bottom because they were melting.”
“That’s not really a story.”
“It’s a fragment of one. Like dreams are fragments. Want me to keep going?”
“Okay.”
“But no one could agree on what glass was. The local glassblowers talked about glass like it was part water, part canvas, and part brush. And the scientists on the computer drew molecules that didn’t look a bit like glass. They used words like amorphous and thermodynamics.”
“Those aren’t really big words. Just sort of.”
“So people argued back and forth about what glass is, and they still do. But I think it’s kind of like magic. A little bit of one thing and a little bit of another.”
“I like how it bends light and traps it.”
“Me too, and I like that there are many ways to think about glass. Just like dreams. And magic.”
. . .
“Eleanor, I’m scared.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“You don’t have to come with me back to the river. I can try to fix the leaks myself.”
“I’m coming anyway.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes. Are you?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE RAFT
When the house quieted, Mike pushed her backpack beneath the bed. I closed my books and grabbed my pillow from under the comforter.
“We’re not going to try to fix the house first?” Mike asked.
I thought about it. “We could patch over the stains. Like with the holes in the kitchen. There’s paint in the basement, and foam filler, we could use that. But the problem’s coming from the river, so a patch won’t stop the leaks forever. Even if we managed to cover them up, they’ll stain right up again. They could get worse.” No. We had to fix the source.
Mike nodded and maneuvered around the riverlets on her knees, keeping to dry carpet as she slid beneath the bed.
I followed, pushing the pillow in front of me. The hard grip of the paring knife bumped my cheek. A roll of washi tape, a ball of socks, and two sweaters bunched at the bottom of the pillowcase, making it lumpy and awkward.
“The Heron said others help fix leaks in the tunnels beneath the river,” Mike said. “Crabs.”
“I remember,” I said as I squeezed next to my sister. “If we can find them, I hope they’ll help us with our leaks too.”
“Okay,” Mike whispered. She didn’t sound convinced.
The underside of the bed was dark, save for the lighthouse’s occasional pass. Mike stayed back as far as she could from the water’s edge, worried. “The river came without us doing anything. It isn’t our fault.”
